What evidence has emerged about who was responsible for the skripal poisoning and how does it compare with murray's account?
Executive summary
British investigators and Western governments have pointed to two Russian nationals they say used a Novichok nerve agent on Sergei and Yulia Skripal, supported by CCTV, travel and criminal charges that the UK has made public [1]. Critics and alternative investigators led by Craig Murray argue the publicly available forensic and timeline details contain anomalies—citing Porton Down caveats, the purity of samples and inconsistencies in CCTV and witness accounts—and therefore advance many rival hypotheses from accidental contamination to state or third‑party culpability [2] [3] [4].
1. The official account and the public evidence
UK authorities concluded the Skripals were poisoned with a nerve agent of the “type developed by Russia” and later charged two men identified in photographs and CCTV as arriving in Britain and allegedly contaminating a door handle [1]. Investigators released CCTV images, tracked travel and publicly argued the agents involved were Novichok‑class compounds; the government used that forensic framing to lay responsibility at the feet of Russian operatives even as Moscow denied the charges [1].
2. Forensic notes, Porton Down and the limits of public science
Several outlets and analysts have highlighted that Porton Down stated it could not attribute the origin of the agent to Russia, a caveat that undercut the political shorthand “made in Russia” and left a forensic gap in the public story [2] [3]. Critics point to the reported “high purity” of samples recovered from contaminated objects—an observation some say is hard to reconcile with environmental exposure on a door handle—raising questions about chain of custody and how much the public record reveals of lab procedures [3].
3. Craig Murray’s account and core claims
Former diplomat Craig Murray has repeatedly questioned the official narrative, arguing the timeline of movements, the CCTV timestamps, the persistence and purity of the agent on surfaces, and the plausibility of two men carrying and using a perfume‑style dispenser do not fit the state story; he has floated alternative actors including UK security services, Porton Down involvement, and other foreign services while stressing he is proposing possibilities rather than proven facts [4] [5] [6].
4. Where Murray’s claims align with the public record and where they diverge
Murray’s insistence on holes in the public evidence aligns with published caveats—such as Porton Down’s refusal to tie origin to Russia and widely noted oddities in how the samples were described—which legitimately point to limits in what has been disclosed [2] [3]. He diverges sharply, however, by treating those gaps as grounds to reject Russian culpability wholesale and by proposing specific alternative culprits without corroborating forensic or witness evidence in the public domain; mainstream fact‑checks and commentators characterise many of his reconstructions as conspiratorial or inconsistent with CCTV and police timelines [1] [7].
5. Motives, narratives and the politics of attribution
The debate over responsibility is intensely politicised: UK government statements framed responsibility in ways that drove diplomatic consequences, while critics assert that Whitehall communication tactics and media amplification created a simplified “official truth” that obscures uncertainties [2] [8]. Murray and some outlets present an explicit sceptical agenda—holding state narratives to account—but critics warn that his pattern of speculative attribution (including naming states like Israel in some posts) mines distrust into alternative conspiracy terrain with its own political implications [9] [10].
6. The balance of evidence and remaining gaps
Publicly available materials support a law‑enforcement narrative that two named suspects travelled and that a Novichok‑type agent was involved, but they do not include a publicly documented forensic chain proving Russian state manufacture or direct command‑level authorization, and Porton Down’s reluctance to ascribe origin is a documented limitation [1] [2]. Murray is right to spotlight evidentiary gaps; he is not, however, supported by independent positive evidence that his alternate specific scenarios are more likely than the official account [4] [5].
7. Conclusion — what can be asserted and what remains open
The available record shows credible investigative leads and state accusations that point to Russian actors, yet also contains acknowledged forensic limits and publicly visible oddities that justify continued scrutiny [1] [2]. Craig Murray’s work functions as a catalogue of those anomalies and as a polemic demanding answers, but his reconstructions outstrip the public evidence and have been criticised by fact‑checking and mainstream analysts for leaping from scepticism to speculative attribution without confirmatory proof [6] [7]. Absent the release of fuller lab reports, evidence chains and investigative files, attribution at the level of state commissioning versus operatives or third parties will remain contested in the public sphere [2] [8].